The present invention relates to an image processing method and apparatus, a recording medium and an imaging apparatus, and more particularly to an image processing method and apparatus for removing noise of an image, a medium for recording a program for a computer to perform such an image processing function, and an imaging apparatus comprising such an image processing apparatus.
In an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) apparatus, an object to be imaged is carried into an internal space of a magnet system, i.e., a space in which a static magnetic field is generated; a gradient magnetic field and a high frequency magnetic field are applied to generate a magnetic resonance signal inside the object; and a tomographic image is produced (reconstructed) based on the received signal.
In order for an observer to view a fine structure in the tomographic image in more detail, filtering is performed to remove noise in the image. Although the filtering is based on low-pass filtering, since the sharpness of the image is lowered by using the low-pass filtering alone, filtering with an additional process for preserving the sharpness is employed.
The filtering with the additional process for preserving the sharpness, however, has a side effect that an incidental texture created by noise is enhanced, causing an anatomically meaningless structure (false structure) to be generated.